


Ashes and Dust

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Intoxication, M/M, Missions, Mutual Masturbation, Something Made Them Do It, Temporary telepathy, Threesome - M/M/M, Uncle/Nephew Incest, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 10:25:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17424113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: A mission goes awry and leaves Luke, Ben and Poe not exactly better off for it.





	Ashes and Dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fairleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/gifts).



It was meant to be a routine mission. But then again they all are, and so many haven't been. 

In the scheme of things, Luke guesses it could've been worse, because he's had a lot worse to compare it to. They arrived at their destination after what should have been three days' solid travel and intensive meditation - Ben hated meditation, and frankly meditation's never exactly been a favorite of Luke's pastimes, either, but he'd had high hopes it might help out with his nephew's little problem. Luke had been feeling something in him, something not quite right if not outright wrong, for months by then. Maybe it had been there for years, even, and the trip had been meant to help that. It had been meant to take them back to their roots and make Ben see where he might grow to next.

And Poe, well, Poe was just meant to be the pilot Luke's sister had picked out to send along and help them. He was meant to get them there in one piece without making a hyperspace jump into an asteroid and then get them back again and that was that, job done. And honestly, Luke should've known the plan was on its way to south once he'd realized that Ben and Poe knew each other - it was plain as the nose on his face that Ben couldn't concentrate for five consecutive seconds with Poe Dameron in his vicinity, and if he couldn't concentrate then he couldn't meditate. The three days they traveled had been more agitation than meditation in the end, truth be told. Truth be told, Ben wasn't the only one who was distracted by Poe's unexpected presence.

They landed at their destination and they disembarked in the mostly disused spaceport. Ilt was a lush planet, all deep greens and vibrant blues when seen from space, though their landing path took them up into the mountains instead of down to the shores of the vast, shining lakes. It was dawn when they arrived, the sun behind them casting a shadow of their borrowed transport ship over the rocky clearing at the outskirts of the small town they'd soon be heading more through than to. They left the ship, and there was no one there to question their arrival at the makeshift spaceport though Luke hadn't expected there would be. He'd been there before, years earlier, alone, while he'd still been searching out old Jedi temples, and little seemed to have changed there since that last visit. 

The people in the town didn't expect visitors, because there honestly wasn't much to visit except the empty temple. They were human and would speak Basic if pushed to it, but their own language more closely resembled something the temple's first inhabitants had spoken. Given where they were living even hundreds of years later, up in the mountains around the temple's entrance, that was hardly a surprise. 

They hoisted their packs, just enough for a night or two, and left the ship. They were relatively high up in the mountains and the air seemed a little thin, but the walk into town wasn't more than twenty minutes or so along the trodden-down dirt road. No one ever really left Ilt, so the lack of other ships and other people they found at the spaceport or heading to and from it didn't come as a surprise, either. And once they came to the town, no one seemed to pay them much attention - probably because they knew few people even knew they were there and even fewer cared. 

The temple had been visible from the moment they'd landed, at the far side of the town, and they made their way toward it. Most of what they could see was just a showy façade, though, carved into the side of the rocky mountain, but Luke couldn't deny it was impressive - the rock was the color of storm clouds and soot, with crystals in its face that flashed red in the sunlight. 

"That's a _Jedi_ temple?" Poe said, sounding skeptical to say the least, and Luke's mouth twisted wryly. 

"Yes, it's a Jedi temple," he replied. It wasn't technically a lie, he guessed; for several hundred years, it _had_ been a Jedi temple. It just hadn't always been. 

Ben glanced at Poe, then glanced at Luke. 

"It was something else before," Ben said. "Right?"

Luke nodded curtly. "Right," he confirmed. And Poe looked at them both like he would've really liked to have asked what they were talking about and was it some kind of weird Jedi code, but instead he kept quiet as they walked. 

Most of the buildings they passed for a start were made from wood, with a few here and there built up at least in part from the same stone as the temple, albeit much more roughly cut. As they came closer to the temple itself, the surroundings became more lavish: there were occasional polished stone lintels at windows and doors, stone pavements, the people's clothing finer. Then, at the temple's base, there was a large bare semicircle free from any buildings except one that sat outside the temple's towering doorway. Luke led the way toward it. Inside, a priest in robes much like Luke's acknowledged them flatly. She'd aged, but she still looked a lot like she had the last time he'd arrived. 

It had been a Jedi temple but it hadn't been used that way for decades by that day, since before the Republic had fallen. That wasn't to say they didn't have their customs surrounding it, however; Luke knew exactly what it was she'd done when she blew the dust into their faces and then beat a swift retreat, but that knowledge came too late. An instant later, before there was time for him to guard against the dust's effects in any way, he and Ben both opened up entirely to the Force. The Force sprang up immediately, like something vivid and alive, and connected them in a way Luke hadn't been able to anticipate. And, more than that, it dragged poor unsuspecting Poe in, too. 

In the dust haze, as it seeped inside them and took hold, Ben looked at him and all the things Luke had tried so hard to deny seemed to unfold between the two of them. Knowing what Ben wanted from him was one thing but feeling it was another thing entirely. _Seeing_ it, well, Luke wasn't sure what to do with that. When he sifted through what was in Ben's head, against Ben's will and his own, he could see himself through Ben's eyes and see Ben seeing himself through his, back and forth and back and forth into infinity. It was dizzying, like the focus of the universe had narrowed down to just the two of them, like tunnel vision. 

"Close your eyes," Luke said, so Ben did it, and Luk rested his human hand over Ben's eyelids as he closed his own. Ben set his hands at Luke's hips to steady himself. And maybe it didn't feel like being inside a hall of mirrors anymore, like one time back on Tatooine or speeding past a line of Coruscant's shiny mismatched windows, but it might have actually been worse. He could see inside Ben's head and it took him somewhere they'd both been, years before. It took him somewhere he'd tried hard to forget. 

Back when Ben was seventeen, Luke had walked in on him. It was completely accidental, and he meant to make a swift and silent exit, except then Ben looked at him; Ben looked at him as he knelt there on the floor of his ill-lit room sometime just after dusk, naked, with his cock in his hand. He didn't say a word but his breath caught as he bit back a groan and that was it - Luke was trapped by it. He stepped back against the wall of Ben's room, almost surprised to find it there, and though he knew he should've turned around and gone back out the way he'd come, he couldn't take his eyes off him. 

As they stood there on Ilt, it was just like being back at the temple in Ben's room. It was the same room then as it had been that night, though Ben had sometimes talked about taking one of the stone huts in the grounds to try to get some deeper clarity and focus away from the other students, and from Luke. It was like being back there, that night, except he was seeing himself through Ben's eyes. He could see the startled, stricken look on his face as he watched Ben stroke himself. He could feel how Ben felt - the physical sensation of his grip on his slicked erection, his knees on the stone floor, the strain in his thighs as he parted them even wider, but also how nervous he was, how he wasn't sure if he should stop, how he didn't understand why it was that Luke wasn't leaving. But the nerves didn't stop him. He just kept going, his breath short and his muscles tense, his eyes on Luke, exhilarated, until he came all over the floor between his knees with a groan he stifled against his own forearm. 

Luke knew what had happened next: he'd stood there just a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of Ben's chest with his rapid breath and the curve of his softening cock, and then he'd left. He saw a confused Ben clean up and go to bed but what he'd done himself was head back to his own room, feeling like the universe had just shifted slightly on its axis and he was the only one who'd noticed it. He'd closed the door and closed his eyes and rested his forehead down against it, his palms pressed flat to the wood. He remembered blaming himself for staying, kicking himself for just standing there frozen, and for the guilty fact that as he stood there, he could feel himself getting hard just thinking back through what he'd just seen. 

He was still standing there when he'd shoved his pants down to mid-thigh and wrapped his hand around his cock. He was still standing there as he'd stroked himself. Ben was in his head the whole time, for the few minutes it had taken, a playback of him kneeling naked on the floor, skin flushed, cock hard. He'd come against the door, feeling like the worst person in the universe. And, right at that dust-addled moment on Ilt, he knew Ben knew exactly what had happened, too. 

"I didn't--" Ben said. 

"Don't," Luke cut in. " _Don't_." He knew exactly what Ben had been about to say and he didn't want to hear it. Then Ben pulled back abruptly, though Luk had to admit he wasn't surprised, and maybe there was an argument on the tip of his tongue but them Poe moved to Luke's left and caught both of their attention. They looked at him, and Luke felt himself tumbling down that strange dust-induced hole again. 

He could see the two of them, Poe and Ben. He saw them meeting for the first time, one afternoon when Ben had gone with Leia on some kind of Resistance business. He saw Poe's smile and felt Ben's immediate, bone-deep attraction. Ben had been younger then by several years, but he'd still been Luke's most promising student, twenty-three years old with a flair for getting into trouble that reminded Luke of Han. Poe Dameron was Leia's favorite hotshot pilot with a quick wit and a charming smile. They'd hit it off right from the start, right through the job that had them flying together in two beat-up old X-wings in need of some repair. They chatted on the radio, or Poe talked and Ben sometimes found he had something to add, then eight days later they headed back to base, job done. 

Poe gave him a quick tour. They had dinner together in the mess hall. Then Poe walked him to the quarters he'd been assigned just for that night and Luke knew with perfect clarity what they both would've liked to have happened next. They stood at the door to Ben's borrowed quarters, looking at each other for some sign of the next step, but neither of them acted on it. He could see it in their heads: Ben had just needed a sign that what was happening was real and Poe had wanted a sign it was okay to proceed, maybe because he'd known what he'd know about the Jedi. He saw Poe misunderstand Ben's awkward silence as him wanting to let him down gently. He saw Ben take it as rejection when what it was was hesitance. And, once the door was closed between them, he saw Ben quietly add it to the festering wound in him that Luke himself had been the one to open, years before. 

There was more in there, in that dust-filled moment. There was so much more. There were nights when Ben had lain awake and thought back to the day he'd met Poe Dameron, and to all the things he would've liked to do. There were nights when his imagination twisted and then merged with something else, another thing, that dark desire from his teenage years that had never found an outlet, and in Ben's head his thoughts of Poe were also thoughts of Luke. He'd knows, of course, even before that night in Ben's room. He'd understood what Ben had wanted from him and he'd told himself over the years there was no good or right or moral way he could reciprocate. But he'd done it anyway, in truth, in the quiet moments when he'd watched him, or when he'd thought of him in bed at night. Right then, with the dust in their veins and the Force alive between them, Ben knew what Luke had wanted, too. And so did Poe. 

When Poe looked at Luke, he knew, and Luke absolutely knew he knew. He knew all about the ridiculous situation between him and Ben, and then more besides that wasn't about Ben at all. There were things in Luke that were all about Poe. Honestly, even if his hand hadn't been forced, Luke might have wanted him to know, or at least some part of him would have. 

When the three of them had stepped onto the transport to head out to Ilt, it had been awkward because not only had it become apparent within the first thirty seconds that Poe and Ben knew each other, but Luke also knew Poe. Luke knew Poe better than it was easy for him to admit, thanks to a job they'd worked together several years before, before Poe and Ben had ever met; he hadn't even known Poe's real name until afterwards, though when he'd found out he'd realized he should've known, considering exactly how much Poe looked like his mother. Sitting there on the transport in failed meditation, watching how Ben and Poe looked at each other, all Luke had been able to dow was wonder - kind of unfairly - if Poe had slept with Leia, too. They all have different surnames, sure, but it had still seemed like maybe Poe was collecting the Skywalker set. 

At that moment, though, in the room outside the temple, he knew he'd been wrong about that. And, more than that, he knew exactly what Poe thought of him for thinking it. 

Poe was thinking about the day they'd met. It had been Poe's first time in Canto Bight and it was actually Luke's, too; he'd arrived two days before Poe to get the job done quietly but nothing had gone to plan at all and then there was his ride arriving, waiting at the spaceport while the armed henchmen (casino security) of a rich First Order sympathizer (the casino owner) considered whether they should shoot first or ask questions. Fortunately, they'd decided to ask questions. 

"Who's your friend, Master Skywalker?" asked Kelva, the head of security, as Poe approached. It seemed quite polite given the circumstances. "He's not on the guest list." 

"A student of mine," Luke replied. "Leo Cantor. I've asked him to stay till I've concluded my business." 

"Bad news," Kelva said. "We have files on you and your students." He stepped closer. "He's not one of them. So tell me, who is he?"

Luke knew he had several options from that point, aside from telling the truth and screwing them both over: he could stick with the lie and see where it led, he could give the mind trick a quick try and probably screw them both over in the process, or he could fight and hope Poe followed his lead. He could almost feel the weight of the lightsaber in his hand before he'd even considered the other options but then Poe - _Leo_ \- raised his hands and said, " Okay. Okay, you got us. I'm his lover, not his student." 

Kelva snorted. "Do you really expect me to believe that?" he asked, and Poe shrugged. 

"Not really, no, but it's the truth," he said. "It's against the Jedi rules, so we have to act like I'm one of them." Poe shook his arms at Kelva, the borrowed Jedi robes of his disguise flapping in the air. "Do you think I _like_ wearing this?" 

The more Poe said, the worse Luke thought it sounded. But still, somehow, the more Poe said, the more Kelva seemed to believe. Eventually, incredibly, he waved them on, and Luke guessed maybe living on a planet amongst gamblers and assorted rich hedonists had made a forbidden secret lover disguised in Jedi robes seem a whole lot more credible than it might have been anywhere else in the universe. It had been a rash risk on Poe's part - Leo's part - but Luke couldn't deny that risk had paid off. 

They went into the casino by its private spaceport entrance and around the next corner, by a locked staff door, Luke turned and pressed Poe up against the nearest wall. He nuzzled at Poe's neck what he hoped might be convincingly, above the collar of his tunic, by his ear. 

"They'll want proof," Luke said. "There are cameras everywhere." 

Poe nodded as he took two handfuls of the back of Luke's cloak; apparently he understood exactly what he'd done and what they might have to do in order to maintain their hastily-concocted cover. Maybe he wasn't so much spy as pilot, but frankly Luke was closer to a pilot than a spy himself. Maybe they'd only met for the first time not even five minutes earlier, but they were going to have to get each other through this. 

Luke led the way to his room. Poe dropped his cloak on the couch and poured himself a drink that he downed in one quick gulp, followed by a second that he took a little more time with while Luke was folding the discarded cloak up neatly. He knocked back half of the drink then passed the glass to Luke who drank the rest and put the empty glass down on the table with a clink. The alcohol was warm in his throat, dark and sweet, and when Poe stepped in and kissed him before either of them could change their mind, he tasted of it. 

What followed seemed almost ridiculous at the time, given they'd known each other for fifteen whole minutes and Luke hadn't had sex in years. Poe pushed him down to sit on the couch and straddled his thighs. He straddled Luke's thighs, both of them still fully dressed, and pressed one hand down firmly to the front of Luke's pants. Luke had to admit it really could've been worse - maybe they wouldn't have done it under any normal circumstances and circumstances at hand were pretty far from idea, but Leo Cantor in the Jedi tunic he was currently pulling up and off over his head really wasn't in any way offputting. Luke ran his human hand over Poe's newly-bared chest and Poe grinned as he unbuckled Luke's belt and shoved his tunic up out of the way. Forty seconds later, Poe wrapped his hand around Luke's cock and squeezed. Fifteen seconds after that, Luke traced the curve of Poe's cock with his fingertips then stroked him, too. Eleven minutes after that, before they'd even known each other for half an hour, they both came in a sticky, breathless mess against each other's abdomens, with Poe's face pressed into the crook of Luke's neck. It all seemed pretty convincing to Luke. He wondered how Kelva had found it. 

After a quick shower each, they toured an exhibit of rare gemstones, had dinner together in the casino restaurant, then spent an hour at the tables before heading back up to Luke's room. Everything they said to each other was completely insane; they talked about the last time they'd visited Cloud City (Luke had to admit it sounded like Poe might actually have been there once, at least, though it definitely hadn't been with him), Poe's deeply non-existent life as Luke's independently wealthy planet-hopping younger lover, gemstones Poe had nowhere near enough credits in his accounts to buy, and the illicit auction Luke was in theory there to attend, the delay of which had extended his stay and dragged Poe into this trouble. Kelva's employer, Obin Shel, made his legal money from the hotel and and casino, and his less legal money from selling 'lost' artefacts and other valuable objects of similarly dubious provenance. This time, amongst other things, he had three old Jedi holocrons and two lightsabers, all in excellent condition. Luke had finally accepted his invitation and gone along. 

They shared the bed that night, once they went back to the room; Poe made a plausible-sounding excuse about being dead tired from the trip, so they changed, turned back the sheets, and went to sleep. In the morning, Poe palmed at Luke's cock over his flimsy pyjamas then pulled them down to around his thighs while Luke wondered how he'd wound up getting himself into this. Luke propped himself up on his forearms to watch, flushed, as Poe took him in his mouth. Afterwards, oddly relaxed to say he knew they were on camera, Poe knelt on the bed, naked, with his knees spread wide, and Luke used the Force to touch him, watching the pressure of it like invisible fingers on Poe's skin. The way Poe sounded, Luke believed they were convincing. 

The thing was, Luke wasn't there for the holocrons or the lightsabers, though he wouldn't have said no to them. He was there for intelligence on First Order bases that the Resistance believed was in Shel's possession, and he planned to use the auction as a distraction. So, over the next six days, while more potential buyers landed, Luke and Poe explored Canto Bight's many delights, under the watchful eye of Kelva's security detail. On the sixth day, they paused to steal kisses and exchange a candid word or two in alleys by expensive stores, ate lunch in a square by a fountain whose artificially grav-slowed spray looked just like a shower of diamonds, then made their way back to the casino. That night, before they slept, Luke came with his cock pressed between Poe's slicked thighs, then Poe got himself off rubbing himself against Luke's hip. They slept well afterwards, despite the circumstances. 

The seventh day was the day of the auction come at least, and nothing went to plan. They found themselves sprinting down endless corridors and up staircases, Poe complaining about how his stupid dress shoes weren't meant for running and Luke not exactly feeling a whole lot better about it, until they'd locked themselves into Shel's private office - where they needed to be - almost by mistake. Luke made a copy of the information they'd come for while Poe grabbed the holocrons and lightsabers to make it look like that was what they'd come for, but by then security had arrived outside. Looking around the room, the only way out that wasn't through fifteen armed men was the skylight high above, in the vaulted ceiling. Luke looked up at it. Poe followed his gaze. 

"I can't climb that," Poe warned him. "I'm a pilot, not a mountaineer." 

"Did I say you had to?" Luke replied. "Get up on the table." 

"Get _where_?"

"Just trust me." 

Poe climbed up onto the heavy wooden desk. Luke floated it up with a liberal application of the Force and Poe fumbled at the skylight as security bayed at the door. 

"I can't hold this forever," Luke called up. "How about you don't take your time?" And Poe glanced down with a roll of his eyes as he finally unlatched the skylight and pushed it open. He climbed up through it, into the rainy night outside. 

"Are you coming or did you want to say hi to Kelva's guys?" Poe called down. 

Luke took a breath, took a three-step run-up, and then he jumped; with a little Force assistance, he landed on the roof outside. Poe raised his brows at him and Luke shrugged back and as they made their getaway across the rooftops to the spaceport, Luke couldn't help but think it had been a lot like pulling a job with Han, just with a lot less sarcasm and a lot more sex. 

They flew back to the Resistance base after a brief, amused argument about who got to sit in the pilot's seat of Poe's borrowed ship. When they got there, Poe gave the holocrons to Luke and Luke gave the intel to Leia. 

"Hey, stop by my quarters before you leave?" Poe said to Luke, then he made to leave the briefing room before Luke could decide on a reply. The door closed behind him. Leia raised her brows. 

"So, you've been making friends with Poe Dameron?" she said, and suddenly everything made an awkward kind of sense. 

"He's Shara Bey's Poe?" he asked. Leia nodded the affirmative and Luke cursed in colorful Huttese under his breath, the way he'd hardly done in months except around 'Leo Cantor'. It really did make sense, because Poe looked so much like her, but considering the way the job had gone he guessed he shouldn't've been surprised. 

After that, he meant to leave. He told himself he'd head straight from the briefing room to his ship and straight from the base back to the temple, except that was absolutely not what he did. Once he'd finished catching up with Leia, he wandered the corridors, telling himself he was just taking the long route to the hangar, except he knew he wasn't. Twenty minutes later, there he was, pressing the buzzer at the door marked _Dameron, P._ When Poe opened it, his hair was still damp from the 'fresher and he'd changed out of the borrowed Jedi robes. He looked different but somehow still the same. 

"I didn't think you'd come," Poe said, as he stood aside to let him in. 

"Honestly, neither did I," Luke replied. He door closed. They looked at each other. 

"So, you're not Leo Cantor from Socorro," Luke said. 

"I don't think I ever said I was," Poe replied. 

"You're--"

"--Poe Dameron, from--"

"--Yavin 4." 

Poe raised his brows. "You know who I am?"

Luke smiled wryly. "Yes," he said. "That's why I shouldn't be here." He breathed out slowly, not quite a sigh. "I knew your mom." 

"Does that make a difference?" Poe asked. 

Luke leaned back against the door. He rubbed his face with both hands. "It probably should," he said, and Poe came closer, bare feet patting against the poured plastcrete floor. He pressed a hand to the door either side of Luke's shoulders and he had his eyes on Luke's his expression cautious like he wasn't sure he was on ground at all, let alone solid ground. 

"Sure, but does it?" Poe asked. 

Luke almost laughed out loud. "Maybe ask me later," he replied. 

Poe kissed him. It was different that time, though Luke wasn't naive enough to believe it was the difference between wanting to do it and having to do it because their lives and certainly the mission might've depended on it. It might have been the difference between an act he'd put on and reality, though, a reality where Leo Cantor did not exist and Luke Skywalker was getting closer to Poe Dameron instead. 

They went to the bed. Poe only had his pants and undershirt left on to take off and then he was naked and stretching out on the creaky single bunk that really, really wasn't meant for two, unlike the huge bed they'd shared back on Cantonica. Poe lay there on his back, one arm tucked up casually behind his head and pulling all his muscles taut except he didn't look particularly casual. He looked flushed and tight and almost nervous and anything but casual, and Luke found he liked that because he figured it meant Poe really did want this. It almost made undressing with Poe's eyes watching his every move a little easier to do. 

Once he was naked, he joined Poe on the bed. He knelt between Poe's thighs and he stroked himself, and he stroked Poe, his gloved synthetic hand on his own cock and his flesh and blood hand around Poe's. Poe's cock was so flushed and hot and stiff already and Luke eased back his foreskin to expose the head and when he ducked down and licked him there, impulsively, Poe's hips bucked of their own accord and Poe laughed and cursed out loud. He grinned sheepishly. Luke just raised his brows and then did it again. 

Poe reached over to the nightstand by the bed, fished around in the squeaky metal drawer and came back with a tube of lubricant that he held out not quite hesitantly toward Luke, like he wasn't totally sure if he'd scare him off with it. It probably should have but the idea of what Poe wanted him to do that they hadn't done before made his stomach clench and his cock fill harder. He took the lube and shuffled up between Poe's thighs. He uncapped it and squeezed some out onto his fingers and Poe pulled up his knees, considered that position for a moment, then turned onto his forearms and his knees, his legs spread out wide. He glanced back over his shoulder. His face was flushed and he was smiling faintly, and Luke took a slow breath in and out to steady himself. 

He parted Poe's cheeks with his still-gloved synthetic hand and Poe dropped his head down and shivered as Luke rubbed the pad of his thumb against his hole. He pressed there a little with the flat of it, feeling Poe's body give a little with the pressure, and he shifted just enough to press the tip of it inside. Poe breathed in sharply. Luke raked his gloved metal fingers down Poe's spine and made him shiver again and squeeze around his thumb as Luke pushed it in a little deeper. Then Luke pulled back. He slicked himself and pressed the tip of his cock against Poe's hole. He pushed forward. He clenched his jaw. Poe groaned as he finally, finally pushed inside. 

Luke hadn't had sex in years before that job and it had been even longer since he'd had sex with a man, maybe twenty years or more. He pushed into Poe, no idea what he was doing there or why, and he wondered idly if Poe did this a lot or if it had been a while for him, too. 

"So, do you seduce a lot of older men?" Luke asked, only half joking. His voice sounded tight. 

Poe laughed breathlessly. "Sure, every chance I get," he replied, and he glanced back over his shoulder just for a second. 

"Honestly, it's been a while," Poe said then, suddenly more serious. His tone made Luke's face flush hot. 

He didn't stop. He gripped at Poe's hips and he moved in him, a little faster, a little harder, making the bed creak though neither of them really paid it much attention. Poe pushed back to meet his thrusts, his back bowed and his knees so wide apart his cock almost brushed the mattress. Luke reached down to stroke him and almost as soon as his fingers closed around him, Poe's muscles pulled taut and he cursed out loud and he came, jerking, over Luke's hand. He went so tight around Luke that he almost couldn't move and Luke clamped one hand over his own mouth to keep from groaning as he bucked into him a last handful of times before he came, too, dizzyingly, still pushed up inside him as deep as he could go. 

He let his chin rest down against his chest as he rubbed at Poe's hips and tried to catch his breath. He was still inside Poe, and he could hear Poe's breath, too, not so different from the way it had been back on Cantonica except the room around them was Poe's and not an overpriced luxury suite above a Canto Bight casino. The things in the room were Poe's, though it didn't look like he had much - Luke understood that, from his time with the rebellion at the fall of the Empire. Sometimes all he'd had was the clothes on his back and the lightsaber at his hip. Once or twice, he'd not even had that. 

"Look, I don't want to spoil the mood but I feel kinda like my hips are gonna dislocate," Poe said, and Luke chuckled as he pulled back and pulled out and let Poe turn over onto his back. He slung his legs over Luke's thighs and Luke rested his palms against Poe's knees. They looked at each other. Poe tucked his hands up underneath his head and smiled, almost actually looking casual this time though the smile was maybe a little wistful. 

"You're gonna tell me this can't happen again, right?" Poe said, and Luke returned his smile tightly. 

"Yes," he replied. "But you knew that." 

"Yeah, I guess I did." Poe reached up to the bars in the headboard and he pulled himself up, shifting around until he was sitting back against the head of the bed with his legs crossed in front of him. "I'd ask you to stay the night, but..." He gestured at the narrow single bed. 

"I should be getting back." 

"I had a feeling you'd say that." 

Luke stood. He dressed. And when he was done, Poe stood up, too, and moved in close, and rested his hands at Luke's clothed hips. Luke brought his own hands up to Poe's bare shoulders. 

"I had fun," Poe said, like he meant it, and he leaned in to kiss Luke quickly on the mouth. 

Luke cupped Poe's jaw in both his hands. "Me, too," he told him, and he meant it, too. 

After that, Luke had turned to leave. He'd left the room, made his way to his ship, and left the base to head back to the temple. They'd seen each other again over the years, in briefing rooms and across hangars, just long enough to wave and smile like long-lost friends, but nothing like the time they'd gone to Canto Bight. And now there they were, seeing it together, both sides of it at once, not the same as it had been with Ben but Luke guessed for all his studies, the Force was still mysterious. 

Sometimes, he'd regretted ever meeting Poe, and right then he knew that sometimes, Poe had felt exactly the same. Sometimes, he'd wished they'd found a way to spend another night together, or that he'd found an excuse to keep in touch, and Poe had had that same hope. In the end, though, he'd told himself he was too old to have a twenty-something lover, let alone one who flew ships for his sister and whose mom he'd worked with once, a long time ago. Poe had guessed that was why history hadn't repeated, but on that point he'd absolutely disagreed. 

Poe gave him a hard, pointed, almost desperate look, and Luke could've given in, he really could have, except suddenly the connection between them seemed to dim just enough for them all to pull back out. They broke free out of each other's heads, even if the effects didn't fade out completely. 

For a moment, what they'd all seen hung between them. For a moment, they could've fought or could've fucked or it could've gone any of ten different ways that Luke could see, and in the haze of dust he wanted all of them. He knew the dust was meant to open up their spirits to the possibility of what lay ahead inside the temple, but maybe some essential part of the instructions had gotten lost over the years, or maybe the priest had meant them to feel this, or at least feel _something_ , or maybe the ritual called for truth between those who wished to enter. All Luke knew was he knew more than he needed to and every part of him ached inside for what might have been. He could feel it in them, too, even then. It would've been so, so easy to give in and drag them both down to the dust-covered floor. 

"We should go," Luke said instead, abruptly. Ben nodded. Poe grimaced but when Luke led the way, he followed. 

They passed the priest and went into the temple. Beyond the doors it was a vast, stone-built thing cut straight into the rock, in excellent condition considering its age, and they could already hear the ice-cold mountain river roaring through the heart of it and down into the caves below. What Ben had said on their way there was right: before the Jedi had moved in and taken over, the temple had been Sith. The idea had been to show Ben a place where light had conquered dark, but as they activated their lightsabers to light their way through the windowless chambers, Luke couldn't help but think this might have been a mistake. 

They continued in a kind of tense, drained silence, each a few feet apart, which Luke was pretty sure was for the best considering everything he'd seen inside their heads, and what they'd seen in his. Poe kept glancing at him, the look on his green-lit face confused. Ben kept glancing at him, too, the look on his blue-lit face accusing. He couldn't say that he blamed either of them. 

They didn't stay for long. The dark and the stale air were more oppressive then than he remembered and the roar of water was everywhere; Luke knew that meditation was an utterly lost cause, so they just wound their way down as the roar of the river got louder. They came out of a narrow staircase into a huge, tall hall, where the river churned over a waterfall and fell down into the caves beneath. Ben went to the slippery edge and peered down and Luke joined him there. He could feel the pull of it, the darkness that was in that place, in every fiber of it, like the Sith had stained it and the Jedi had never quite managed to chase it out again. He could feel the rawness of it, the overwhelming power, _right there_ if only they'd reach out for it. Luke felt Ben reach out and he reached out himself to stop him, but all that did was bring him one step closer, too. He could feel it in him, hot and roiling, like the desire he felt for Ben. It felt wrong, but that didn't mean he didn't want it. He hell of it was, he did. 

Poe yanked on their packs and pulled them back from the edge, but Luke's still not sure it saved them. 

They'd been meant to stay the night but they left instead, and Luke immediately regretted it despite the fact he wasn't sure he could've stood to stay there with that tension in the air between them the way it was, teetering on the edge of something he'd never thought to guard against. Two First Order troopers came looking for them on the road back to the spaceport and Luke deflected one's blaster bolt away from Poe into a nearby tree but Ben took a Force-assisted leap and cut them both down before Luke could make another move. Maybe Ben didn't actually take pleasure in their deaths but he did feel grimly satisfied, and Luke knew what they'd come there for had failed completely and utterly. Luke turned and walked away, because there was nothing else for him to do. Ben and Poe both followed close behind. 

Inside the transport, up the ramp into the cargo bay, they paused. Luke could still feel the dust, clinging to him, inside him, and at the time that was what he blamed the whole thing on. He was tired and he was bitter and mixed up, and Ben and Poe were both looking at him as if waiting for some kind of a decision or a sign, like they wanted things from him as well as one another. Ben looked at him like he'd been betrayed, like he'd been lied to for years, and Luke was powerless to change his mind in any way because he understood that was completely true. They'd never talked about that night but nothing else had ever happened and he'd honestly believed that that was for the best; the problem was, now he wasn't quite so sure. The problem was, whatever his decision, Ben now knew. Ben knew, and they both knew Luke had wanted him to all along.

Luke lifted one hand; he took hold of Ben with the Force and he lifted him and he dragged him closer, the toes of his boots scraping across the metal deck plates, and even when he let him go right there in front of him, there was still a moment inside which it could all have been averted. Luke saw two paths stretch out before them and he knew, inside that moment, exactly where it was that each would lead. He told himself it was the dust and that moment's certainty that made him reach up to tangle his fingers into Ben's long hair. He told himself that was why he dragged him down into the kiss he'd always believed he could never permit. 

Ben took two handfuls of the front of Luke's tunic and he kissed him back, so hard it was almost angry. They weren't alone and they both knew it but that didn't stop them, at least not for a start; Ben dropped his pack to the deck and so did Luke; Ben shrugged off his cloak and so did Luke; Ben took off his belt and he stripped to the waist and when Luke tried to follow suit, he only got as far as his linen undershirt before Ben stepped back in again, impatient as he'd always been. Luke had never been able to train that out of him and he didn't expect he ever would, as Ben's teeth grazed his neck, as his hands skimmed Ben's warm, bare back. But they weren't alone and the sound of Poe's footsteps made that even clearer to them. 

They both looked at him as he moved toward them, with a look on his face like he had no idea what he was doing but like he'd apparently made up his mind to do it anyway. Ben had to know the same thing Luke now did: the unsettled end to Ben and Poe's acquaintance had just been a dumb misunderstanding. They all looked at each other, glancing one to the other. And then, Luke held out one hand to Poe. Poe stepped in, and he pulled Ben down into the kiss they'd both wanted so badly but had never had before. And honestly, they knew what would happen next long before they did it. 

Three days later, when they returned to the temple, all traces of the dust were gone from in their systems and with it every possibility Luke had had for pretending what they'd done had been against his will. Poe stayed there that night before heading on; Luke prepared a room for him, but he's sure all three of them were aware that he was only going through the motions. Poe and Ben both joined Luke in his room once the lights were out, and they didn't leave till morning. 

The mission was far from a success and Luke knows it; they'd set out to connect with the Jedi's past and ended up connecting in another way entirely. It's not the Jedi way, at least not any way the Jedi used to be before Palpatine gave the order that all but wiped them out, and it's far from being something they can ever name out loud, but sometimes at night Luke lies away and sees those same two paths in his closed eyes. One way, Ben falls; the other, he rises. The only way to know for sure he's done the right thing is just to watch and see. 

He and Ben share quarters on a resistance base now it's hard to deny something's brewing out there - the First Order attack on the temple ended with two students dead along with thirteen troopers in bloodstained white helmets before their captain in her shiny armor ordered their retreat and after that, Luke and the rest moved to be with Leia and her people. He and Ben are master and apprentice, uncle and nephew, and a few more awkward things besides, sharing a room due to the base's limited space. That's where they are now, Luke at the desk and Ben cross-legged on Luke's bed, and Poe slips in through the unlocked door. He flashes a grin and he takes off his coat. He's maybe more at home there now than they are. 

Luke closes his book and stands up. Ben unfolds his long legs and stands up, too. Poe raises his brows. Luke takes three steps across the room and meets him in a kiss. 

Sometimes all they do is talk, about the war that's coming or the Jedi students' training or what Black Squadron has been doing that day. Sometimes Poe turns up with food on three precariously balanced trays so they don't have to leave the room and they eat at the desk once Luke's set his books aside. Sometimes Luke goes out and leaves them to it; the whole base thinks Ben and Poe are lovers, and he's the only one but them that knows that's far from the whole story. 

Sometimes, like tonight, Luke tugs at Poe's shirt till it's out of his waistband and Poe lifts his arms to let him pull it off over his head. Sometimes, like tonight, Ben steps up behind Poe, barefoot and already shirtless, and ducks his head to press his mouth to the nape of Poe's neck. They don't bother with taking it slow; Poe's just the duration of a debriefing from having come back in from an assignment, and the fact is they're both pleased he's back there still alive. 

Poe goes to the bed and Ben follows him. They lose the rest of their clothes along the way and Luke watches them - in the start, he felt awkward about that, but it turned out they both like him to, like they can put on a show that's just for him. He watches them in a tangle of limbs, Poe on his back raking Ben's hair back from his face, the familiar way they fit together. Poe turns onto his knees and Luke watches Ben slick them both with lubricant, fumbling because he's impatient just like he always is. Luke watches Ben push into Poe, watches them move together, watches Poe laugh and Ben smile at that. Sometimes he thinks everything would be simpler if he just left and went away and never came back, because they'd have this and they'd have each other. But then they both look over at him and he knows the time for that passed long ago. He can't leave. He's going nowhere. 

His life is here now. His life is _this_ now. It's Ben and it's Poe and it's nine other students who have somehow failed to sense a change in him. It's bloody assignments he'd like to shield Ben from though he knows he can't. When Leia tells him she can feel it, he tells that it's necessary and he can almost persuade himself that's true - he'd like to think they'll use just enough dark that the light will blot it out again once the war is over, but he knows that's a lie. He's done some things since that day on Ilt that once upon a time there's just no way he could've lived with. And maybe Ben's lightsaber is still blue, but he's started wearing black. Luke hasn't tried to stop him. 

He doesn't bother with undressing because that would just waste time. He just bares himself from waist to knee and tucks his tunic up under his arms and once he's slicked himself up thickly with the lubricant Ben hands him, he steps in close behind them. Ben's close enough to the edge of the bed that Luke doesn't have to kneel; he's standing as he takes a breath and pushes into him in one long, deep stroke. When he rocks his hips, it's _his_ motion that pushes Ben a little deeper into Poe. With the thrum of what they're feeling in the Force, in the air, it's like he's having them both at the exact same time. 

Every day, he feels Ben slipping further. Every day, he feels himself go, too. Part of him hopes he's wrong, but another part just doesn't care. 

When they're done, Ben and Poe undress him and they pull him down against the mattress. As Poe settles on his side pressed up against Ben's back, as he flashes Luke a smile past Ben's bare shoulder, he can't make himself regret this. They're living in the ashes of the life they knew before, but at least they're living.

If Ben falls, Luke knows he'll fall with him. But he figures that if anyone can pull them back from that, it's Poe.


End file.
